Falling for Paris All Over Again

A little travel note : one week in Paris

Back in my hometown after two years away, what a bliss it is to be a tourist in Paris now.

You take in only the good parts : everything feels beautiful. I fall for it all over again every time.

In just two years, Paris has changed. The chaos of electric scooters has given way to electric bikes, and bakeries and pâtisseries seem to have popped up on every corner. It is wildly tempting to taste everything. If you have a sweet tooth like I do, you're done for.

I crossed Paris by bike all week, and with the spring sunshine, it felt even sweeter. There is something so special about rediscovering your city from the saddle : a mix of memories, light, little bursts of joy, and that very Parisian pleasure of riding along the Seine feeling as if you've slipped into your own film.

Between family, old friends, and coffees grabbed here and there, I also managed to squeeze in a few exhibitions. And not just any exhibitions : Renoir at the Musée d'Orsay, Matisse at the Grand Palais, a visit to the Palais de Tokyo for Cathy de Monchaux, and, just in time, Mickalene Thomas: which was ending almost the day after we arrived.

I began beautifully, at the Grand Palais, after cycling there along the Seine in the spring chill, with the Eiffel Tower in sight and the chestnut trees glowing green. So cliché. And yet, so good.

Mickalene Thomas All about Love exhibition is dazzling : sensual, bold, radiant. Her work places Black women at the centre of the picture : with power, softness, glamour, and joy. Rhinestones, collage, seventies patterns, vibrant interiors : everything feels rich, intimate, and unapologetically alive. An exhibition about love, yes, but love as strength, freedom, and self-affirmation.

Easter Monday was a beautiful day, but almost all the museums were closed. All of them… except the Palais de Tokyo. So off I went to see the Cathy de Monchaux, Normes Corps exhibition. And there, I stepped into a truly fantastical world : surreal, strange, full of entrails, roots, flesh, and the female body opened up, exposed, almost turned inside out. It is carnal, unsettling, sensual, and completely fascinating.

One whole room is dedicated to her sketches, writings, research, and tiny sculptures, and that part almost felt like stepping inside her mind.

Among all that intensity, there is also something exquisite, and even a surprising sense of humour quietly running through it.

A few days later, we were back on our bikes, following the Seine under glorious Parisian sunshine, heading to see Renoir.

When I was 12, he was my favourite painter. I loved the softness of his world : people dancing, drinking, eating, basking in the daylight. I loved his rounded women, their almond-shaped eyes, the tenderness in his faces, the glow of his colours.

I thought I would enjoy it, but I didn’t expect to be so moved by it. There were preparatory drawings in charcoal, pastel, and sanguine, a few discreet and lovely watercolours, and everywhere that sense of movement, grace, and warmth. The whole thing felt like a spring waltz : fresh, tender, human, and full of light.

And then came the grand finale : Matisse.

My favourite painter of all time. At the Grand Palais, no less.

You walk in, and there he is : two small films of Matisse painting. That was it for me. I stood there for 20 minutes watching them on loop, completely mesmerised. In three strokes, he draws a portrait. It looks almost indecently simple. And yet behind that simplicity, you feel the years, the discipline, the eye, the hand, all the work it took to arrive at something so distilled.

Then come the drawings, the paintings, the studies, the variations. You begin to understand that this simplicity was never effortless : it was conquered.

And then come the cut-outs.

After illness, when he could no longer paint as before, Matisse reinvented himself completely. He cut, simplified, stripped things back, and somehow created something even freer, even bolder, even more alive.

A complex simplicity. A language of pure light and form. And by the time I reached the Blue Nudes, I could see nothing but blue.

Of course, nothing can truly capture what art feels like in real life. Photos do not do it justice. But they can offer a small glimpse.

Love from Paris. Off to Tangier, Morocco, to visit my mum.